The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Sunday, April 06, 2014

The tempo of U.S. military occupation of Africa quickens by the day.
Seizing every real and manufactured crisis as an opportunity, Washington
has created a continental infrastructure that has already reduced most
African armies to appendages of U.S. foreign policy, dependencies of the
Pentagon. American armed forces operate across the length and breadth
of Africa and exercise effective control over the armies of nearly all
of the continent’s constituent states.

The recent lack of action in the Middle East reflects the crisis of U.S. foreign policy — Obama simply has no idea what to do next; he’s continued the Bush-era policy of tearing the region asunder and, like Bush, he doesn’t have the political-military power to put the smoldering jigsaw back together again — at least not in a way favorable to “U.S. interests.”

Ava and C.I. were going to cover two TV shows. I (Jim) came in on them laughing about what might happen to Saturday Night Live and, when I asked, they filled me on the phone call. I looked on my tablet as they were talking and no one has this story. Would it upset their friend if they wrote about it? No, they said, the network would probably be thrilled to have it out there. So I asked them to write about it.

This was a movie piece that was actually the start of a roundtable. We record them and we were waiting for everyone to join and talking about movies when this film popped up. Rather than make it a transcript piece, we turned it into an article.

Press TV notes today, "Iraq is plagued by more death and destruction in the countdown to the parliamentary elections." Why should the lead up be any different than the rest of the year so far or different than last year?

The violence is caused by Nouri al-Maliki.

In 2006, Bully Boy Bush insisted that Nouri be named prime minister by the Iraqi Parliament and not the Parliament's own choice of Ibrahim al-Jafaari. His term, from 2006 to 2010, was characterized by one failure after another and life was not improved for the Iraqi people.

He was an obstacle to progress.

In March 2010, Iraqis voted in parliamentary elections and Nouri's State of Law coalition lost to Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya.

What happened next?

With the whole world watching, the election was stolen.

There's so much outrage over this or that uncovered scandal in Barack Obama's administration -- the illegal spying, The Drone War, the nefarious USAID.

But here's a little reality for all the outraged posers, the Iraq election was stolen in the open.

And Amy Goodman didn't want to tell you about it. All the whores of indymedia didn't want to tell you. Their job, as they saw it, wasn't to tell you what happened, it was to whore for Barack.

And the corporate media wasn't much better. Charlie Rose loved to yack on TV with Michael R. Gordon . . . until Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor wrote Endgame which dealt with realities including the 2010 election and then Charlie Rose suddenly had no use for Gordon.

How did Nouri get a second term?

The White House ordered US officials in Iraq to put together a contract granting Nouri a second term (this is The Erbil Agreement).

How did they get political blocs to agree to that?

By promising them things they wanted in the contract and insisting the contract was binding and had the full support of the US government.

But Nouri used the contract to get his second term and then refused to honor the promises he agreed to in the contract.

And the White House?

They acted as if they'd never heard of The Erbil Agreement.

So not only did the White House, not only did Barack, subvert democracy but also, after giving the word of the US government, they went back on the word.

It's hard to imagine an outcome that could be worse for the Iraqi people.

Independent Catholic News notes today, "The Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans, Archbishop Louis Sako
Raphael, has given instructions for a special prayer to be recited in
all the Chaldean churches in Iraq at the end of Sunday Masses in
preparation for the upcoming elections, scheduled on 30 April."

We got in a few more before he said, "No, no, Judy on Leave It To Beaver!"

Oh.

Jeri Weil played Beaver Cleaver's classmate Judy Hensler, the closest thing to a nemesis Jerry Mathers' character had on the show with her constant kissing up to their teacher Miss Landers.

Saturday Night Live is suffering through one of its worst periods of all time. It's been a hit, it's a been flop, it's had people calling for its demise because it was boring or just not funny but it's never had negatives like it does now.

As a result, NBC suits are monitoring the show's reception episode-by-episode these days.

The week Kerry Washington was set to host, you may remember, a media frenzy began to build over the fact that SNL had no African-American female in the cast. You may have noticed the frenzy ceased as quickly as it started because Lorne Michaels immediately announced he would hire an African-American female.

We think Shonda's tremendously talented, we personally like her and we also find it offensive that Lena -- who produces a show with an all White cast -- thought she could mock Shonda for diversity. We think it's one of the all time low points of SNL, mocking a show for having a diverse cast.

Otherwise, we ignore the show.

We had told the NBC friend that phoned this morning, had told him over two years ago, that we just weren't going to waste our time on the show anymore. It had become one-sided and, worst of all for comedy, predictable.

Which is why he called Sunday.

More and more SNL viewers are sounding off to NBC these days. There's a comment form you can fill out at the NBC site -- we couldn't find it, it kept asking for another click after another. Braver and more determined souls than us successfully navigate the site to leave comments during the show.

Mainly about how awful the show is and at what point during the broadcast they turned off.

The first skit after the 'opening monologue' (which was sung) seems to have run off most from what we were told on the phone.

One man, identifying as a Democrat, explained he just couldn't take it anymore.

The skit was about ObamaCare.

There are many jokes there. ObamaCare is very unpopular. At ABC News on Monday, Gary Langer noted a Washington Post - ABC News poll which found an even split on support for it with the half of Americans for it and half against it (margin of error is 3.5%) while Wednesday found Kristen Soltis Anderson (Daily Beast) pointing out that the poll was the exception with most other polls "showing opposition to the law [at] over 50 percent with support barely cracking the low 40s." Two weeks ago, Jonathan Easley (The Hill) observed:Democrats have been waiting for ObamaCare to become popular for four years.And counting.Congressional
leaders and senior White House advisers have been saying since 2010
that public opinion will turn their way sometime soon. Be patient, they
have told anxious members of their party again and again.

They went with a skit mocking Fox News, a skit where it's funny that Fox News questions the government (specifically the claim of how many enrolled).

SNL mocked questioning authority.

And they again ridiculed Fox News.

That's how Judy came up.

The show, specifically that skit, was compared to Judy on Leave It To Beaver.

Because it was a kiss-ass skit.

It wasn't funny, it wasn't novel. It was the sort of thing, honestly, that Fox News tried in the final gasps of the Bully Boy Bush administration.

Remember that?

The 1/2 Hour News Hour?

It was comedy that was going to 'buck' conventional wisdom by telling you how great Bully Boy Bush was. Those appearing on the show (we'll be very kind and not name them) came off like kiss asses, like brown nosers. Comedy only works when it takes on the powerful.

If your big joke is that some struggling worker lost his or her job and is now homeless, no one's going to laugh. You aim high in comedy, go after the big targets.

A lot of people, including us, laughed at The 1/2 Hour News Hour -- at, not with -- and thought the left would never do anything so stupid.

Then came Seth Meyers and Saturday Night Live morphed into a very unfunny show.

Unfunny and unfair.

The show that used to boat it made fun of all sides became, for the first time in its long history, the comedy show that couldn't make fun of a sitting president when that president was Barack Obama.

There was hope that when Seth left the show (which he did in February), SNL would bounce back to something resembling normal.

We didn't share that hope.

We knew Seth was politically ignorant and so were the others.

Because of the call, we had to watch the episode. Or at least the opening.

GM before Congress.

That was the 'funny.'

It could have been funny and political but instead it was sexist and Three Stooges.

Sexist in that the 'joke' was that a woman wouldn't know anything about cars. Three Stooges in that the only genuine laugh comes from the executive attempting to wheel away in her chair and, when caught, insisting the floor was slanted.

A woman doesn't know anything about cars? From 2008 through 2013, SNL has no African-American female cast member?

This is what we mean by the writers being politically ignorant.

They're offended by racism -- real racism and faux racism -- and denounce it in others. But it took a protest to get an African-American woman in the cast?

It took that protest after years of SNL taking potshots at others for racism?

And they think they're so left and yet they resort to sexism constantly?

Seth Meyers, on air in a Weekend Update segment, blamed low income (mainly minority) Americans for the housing crisis and you think he's politically aware?

No, they're deeply stupid and prone to seeing the worst in others while failing to examine themselves.

That's why the jokes aren't funny and the series now revolves around TV show parodies and TV commercial parodies.

They're unable to write real skits because they're unable to examine their own lives.

And their knee-jerk comedy is killing the show.

SNL long had a problem with people turning off after Weekend Update. These days the numbers are alarming with regards to how many turn off before.

And the predictable and one-sided, kiss ass nature of the show has resulted in huge negatives for the show.

SNL needs to be able to pull potential viewers with a big name host. But the pool of potential viewers grows smaller and smaller.

There are too many people at present, as NBC's polling demonstrates, who will not watch the show.

SNL never had this problem before. That's because when either Bush was in the Oval Office, they mocked him. When Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were in the Oval Office, they mocked him.

The show's go-to for the last six years has been mock Fox News.

Or mock Elizabeth Hasselbeck for her right-wing views when she was on The View but not mock Sherri Shepherd for saying the world was flat or for her many anti-gay remarks over the years-- most recently in January.

SNL in better times mocked abusrdity.

But these days, it's as if the writers spend each session searching through Media Matters for something stupid that the right-wing did.

The NBC exec said this morning that he couldn't believe how many liberals were offended by this.

He shouldn't be surprised.

Fairness doesn't belong to one side. Most Americans believe in fairness and equality and when they see SNL becoming an organ for one political party, they will be appalled.

We were making this point in real time, years ago.

And to his credit, the NBC suit noted that during the conversation.

But he mainly did so to ask what we thought happened next?

Could SNL recover from this?

The season is almost over.

We don't see how.

They have spent years -- since 2008 -- being one-sided and hypocritical. To turn that image around in a month?

They'd have to work hard and quickly and, as we noted earlier, Lorne does nothing immediately.

Look at the ruin of SNL, for example, it took him six years to give the show it's worst reputation ever, to create a large pool of people hostile to the show who will never watch, not even if Kurt Cobain rose from the dead to show up as a musical guest.

A network can stick with an iffy show that goes up and down in the ratings if it has the potential to rebound but, more and more, it's becoming clear that the number of potential Saturday Night Live viewers is shrinking.

NBC, based on statements this morning, appears to think it can handle this. It was noted that Lorne "falls in line" when push comes to shove.

Actually, he doesn't.

He'll play like, for example, he fired Norm McDonald or Adam Sandler because NBC really twisted his hand but he actually did so because he'd come to agree they needed to go.

The NBC suit allowed we might be right about those examples but then cited Up All Night. Faced with cancellation, Lorne went along with every order to revamp the show ("and we gave orders," he said).

For those who've forgotten, a very funny show in its first season became an idiotic and reactionary program in its second season and it was so bad that when Christina Applegate announced she was leaving the still in-production show, no one threatened her with a lawsuit.

If the exec is right, then next season's Saturday Night Live will be of interest if only to see who wins out: the network or Lorne?

Warren Beatty has the filmography all of his peers should envy with the exception of possibly Jack Nicholson. Beatty's appeared in one classic after another. He kicked off his film career co-starring with Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass. His next six films had moments of promise but it wasn't until he stepped up as a producer, with Bonnie & Clyde, that he appeared in his next classic. Since then, he's had near non-stop classic films.

2001's Town & Country doesn't make that list. But Beatty didn't produce that film nor did he direct it.

One of the all time worst directors, Peter Chelsom, directed the film.

Chelsom's many flops include Funny Bones, The Mighty, Serendipity and Shall We Dance? -- but he did have a box office hit with Hannah Montana: The Movie. Of course, most adult directors would probably prefer to leave that last credit off their CV.

Despite a director-free film, Goldie Hawn managed an actual performance and she's quite delightful in the film. Along with Goldie and Warren, the cast also included Diane Keaton, Gary Shandling, Andie MacDowell, Jenna Elfman, Josh Hartman and Charlton Heston.

All have moments but only Goldie really gets a performance in and that's in part because of her talent, also because of luck and because she's offering another viewpoint in the film.

Town & Country could have been a hit film. Chelson can point to the reels of film that were stolen and insist the film might have turned out differently.

That's a possibility.

But the film flopped because Chelson was cowardly and stupid.

I Love You To Death is a film that flopped.

Like Town & Country, the main character was a cheating husband. Kevin Kline plays the Warren Beatty role in that film. Both films ensure they flop by opening with cheating.

Most film goers are never going to want to know and embrace a character they meet who's cheating in the first scene and enjoying cheating.

That was pure stupidity.

So was letting Josh Hartnett play a straight character.

Gary Shandling plays Goldie's secretly gay husband in the film. Gary's really gross and also someone who can't come across because he's always tripped up by the filigree. Hartnett plays the son of Diane Keaton and Warren Beatty's character. He's also good looking and wouldn't be lost in neurosis the way Shandling always is.

Playing gay might also have allowed Hartnett to not provide the worst performance in the film. Yes, there are some embarrassing scenes -- Heston and MacDowell are saddled with some of the worst scenes in the film. But Hartnett has no character to play and lacks the skill to provide anything that's not on paper.

The image below is from what should be the key scene in the film.

Hartnett enters the kitchen and has nothing to offer in the script and nothing to offer on his own.

All three around the table have just finished having sex (with various female partners). There's not a real relationship in the bunch.

That includes Warren and Diane -- that's why he's cheating.

Josh is not a counterpoint to the other three men because the script set him up that way.

A braver script would have made clear that he's like the other three men and a braver script wouldn't have paired him with a woman.

Why pair him with a man?

To allow the film to move beyond gender victimization.

They painted themselves into a corner where the script became bad men victimize women and having established that -- without even realizing it -- the only way an ending satisfies is if Diane Keaton's character triumphs -- see First Wives Club.

If she doesn't, the audience isn't happy to sit through a film.

By making Hartnett's character gay and joining the kitchen after sex with a man, it's more about a type of young men who can't see partners as full people. A type of young men and one man who refuses to grow up. It's about a group of males who mistake swagger and strutting for manhood.

That's the problem the characters have.

The film doesn't establish that point clearly and many scenes undermine it.

This includes when Hawn catches Shandling cheating at the start of the film. Why was it necessary to have the man with Shandling dress as a woman? It wasn't.

Goldie's character can see enough to think cheating is taking place and also assume Shandling's cheating with a woman.

By making Shandling's male lover dress up as a woman, it's one more level of insult to women in the audience.

(To be clear, Shandling's lover is neither transgender nor a transvestite. The dress up isn't even part of some sex play. It's a cheap and tacky ploy.)

The three men around the table are fooling themselves. A revolutionary living on Park Avenue? (Even the characters in the film find that unbelievable.) A man who's unable to communicate with anyone in the apartment (including the woman he's sleeping with)? A man who has an understanding and supportive wife who shares her life with him and cheats over and over with one woman after another?

The first two are young enough to grow out of it. The third man, Beatty's character, should have outgrown it long ago.

That's the story that could have been told and making Hartnett's character gay would have made the point even more clear.

Dona moderated this. Why? I (Jim) was doing a piece with Ava and C.I.
Ty was doing his own piece. That left Jess and Dona. And no one
thought to ask Jess. How come? He really grew up without a TV. He
knows very little about TV. He was allowed to watch cartoons and PBS
and that was it. So Dona told Jess she'd grab it and he could crash
with a nap or do whatever. Only a moment ago did we find out Jess has a
favorite TV show. You'll never believe what it is but you'll have to
wait for next week. We're done for this week.

Jim's provided an oversimplification of my childhood. We didn't have the TV on in the background every hour of the day, but we did have a TV. It was in the living room. My sister and I did watch cartoons and PBS, but we did see a number of other things as well.

Slap and Tap Kerry, seen here with Ahmet Uzumcu (Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons), is yet again boasting that he was blessed with a large penis and demonstrating the width of it with his hands.

Poor Barbara Lee, you'd think all that spinning would mean she'd actually lose weight, instead the pounds have piled on. Maybe she feels a little shame for her lies since Barack Obama became President of the United States? Once upon a time, she said the Afghanistan War had to end. Years and years later, it continues and, since Bully Boy Bush is no longer in office, she's grown okay with it. Her shame, no doubt, accounts for eating problems which have led her to balloon up.

But it was left to Senator Bernie Sanders' office to tell the hard truth, "The official unemployment rate for March was 6.7 percent,
unchanged from February, but real unemployment ticked up to 12.7
percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday. That number
counts workers forced to settle for part-time jobs and those unemployed
for so long that they have given up looking for work."

Barbara Lee can betray the people and surrender her independence to Barack all she wants.

It won't change the fact that he has failed to fix the economy.

It also won't change the fact that, since being sworn in, he's repeatedly promised to address the issues of employment but he's been repeatedly distracted by ObamaCare, beer summits and other nonsense.

Seymour Hersh has another explosive article. This one is entitled "The Red Line and the Rat Line" and is published by The London Review of Books. Here's the opening:

In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya
without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack
on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air
strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing
the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.​＊
Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he
announced that he would seek congressional approval for the
intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for
hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer
to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did
Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing
into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the
administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and
military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and
potentially disastrous.

Senator
Murray Introduces Emergency Bill to Reverse New VA Policy Change that
Has Shut the Doors of Homeless Shelters to Veterans

Veterans have been turned away in the wake of
sudden VA policy change made in February that limits eligibility for
indispensable grant program that supports homeless shelters and
providers

After Murray introduces legislation, VA NOW says it will temporarily rescind the policy change but final legal opinion could still shutter access for homeless veterans

(Washington D.C.) – U.S. Senator Patty Murray, a senior member of the
Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, on Thursday introduced emergency
legislation that would reverse a sudden and largely unexplained
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) policy change that has restricted
homeless veterans' access to housing and services. Senator Murray’s
bill, The Homeless Veterans Services Protection Act (S. 2179), reverses a
new VA policy by allowing community organizations who receive funding
through the VA’s Grant and Per Diem (GPD) Program to once again count
veterans who don’t meet certain length of service or discharge
requirements when calculating the federal GPD allotment that often
allows these facilities to operate.

Just two weeks ago, a VA memo went out to these programs
forbidding them from counting new homeless veterans who didn’t serve for
two years or were given certain “other than honorable” discharges from
service. That instruction meant that community organizations in
many instances had to begin denying homeless veterans housing, and
reversed the standard that VA and these providers have used for two
decades. No contingency plan was given to provide for the veterans who
would be turned away.

“This is federal bureaucracy at its most heartless,”said Senator Murray. “For
the VA to suddenly tell homeless providers that they are limiting a
successful, 20 year-old program in a way that will put more veterans on
the streets, defies all common sense, particularly when this
Administration has set the bold and commendable goal of ending veterans
homelessness by 2015. If this is a question of cost the VA needs to come
forward and say that and I will fight just as hard for funding as I
will to restore eligibility.”

The change also affects the critical Supportive Services for Veteran
Families program, which allows VA to award grants to organizations that
assist very low income families living in or transitioning to permanent
housing by providing them with a range of supportive services.

UPDATE:
Monday morning VA announced that they would temporarily place a
moratorium on the policy change after Senator Murray introduced
legislation to reverse it. However, the VA has indicated that change is
only temporary until a final legal opinion, which is expected to
reaffirm this ban, is issued.

Blank Project: Neneh Cherry's comeback is worth the wait

by Sarah Robertson

Blank Project is a new album by Neneh Cherry

Neneh Cherry has said Blank Project, her first new album since 1996,
was the creative outlet she needed after the death of her mother.

Cherry is known as much for her style as her hits.
And she has not lost the attitude or confidence that in 1988 propelled
her on to Top of the Pops seven months pregnant in a Lycra mini-skirt,
exciting a storm of tabloid outrage.

Blank Project echoes the 90s sounds of Massive
Attack, with whom she collaborated, and the hip-hop, pop, electro-funk
fusion that she helped pioneer.

Her versatile and commanding voice is showcased on
an emotional and personal album that touches on themes of motherhood,
menstruation, death and depression.

Cherry has much more to give than those records
that brought her stardom in the 80s and 90s. It’s just a shame she left
it so long.

Tweets, the Cuban 5 and the U.S. blockade

A widely distributed Associated
Press article on April 3 revealed details of yet another covert U.S.
program meant to undermine socialist Cuba.

The AP’s investigative report, titled “U.S. secretly built ‘Cuban
Twitter’ to stir unrest,” describes a multimillion-dollar program funded
by the U.S. Agency for International Development that was meant to
gather intelligence on cellphone users in Cuba for eventual use in
destabilizing the country.

Both this report and an earlier one on the secret role of USAID
contractors in Cuba, published on Feb. 13, 2012, strip away the agency’s
claims of helping poorer countries and show it to be really just
another tool of U.S. imperialism.

An immediate response came from Josefina Vidal, who is in charge of
relations with the U.S. at Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

“The information contained in the article published by the U.S. news
agency AP,” she said, “confirms the repeated denunciations made by the
government of Cuba. It is once again demonstrated that the government of
the United States has not given up on its subversive plans against
Cuba, which seek to create destabilizing situations in the country in
order to provoke changes in our political order, to which the government
of the United States continues to dedicate budgets of millions of
dollars every year.

“The government of the United States must respect International Law
and the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and
it must, therefore, cease its illegal and covert actions against Cuba,
which are rejected by the Cuban people and the international public
opinion.” (Cuba MinRex)

The AP report describes how the U.S. carefully concealed its hand in
setting up a twitter-like application, aimed at Cuban cellphone users,
that it called ZunZuneo. It resorted to money laundering, fictitious
offshore shell corporations, mirrored sites and computers in different
countries in order to conceal the origins of the app.

In an era of the massive gathering of electronic and phone
communications by the National Security Agency, both in the U.S. and
around the world, the ZunZuneo subterfuge shouldn’t be too surprising.
Even former President Jimmy Carter says he uses the postal service to
communicate with other heads of state because he believes the U.S.
government is spying on him.

After the AP’s bombshell, the International Business Times published a
brief history on earlier U.S. attempts to undermine the Cuban
government. It included images of U.S. documents from the 1961 Bay of
Pigs invasion to Operations Mongoose and Northwoods — including
assassinations and scenarios meant to provide the pretext for an open
invasion.

It took years for these plots to be revealed in the major media. So what is new, and why now?

One factor is undoubtedly the global capitalist economic crisis,
which is intensifying competition among the imperialists for economic
penetration and profitable exploitation of more countries.Blockade of Cuba has failed

In the digital age, the U.S. blockade of Cuba is intensifying. Take
for a tiny example what happened to the British group Cuba Solidarity
Campaign when it attempted to purchase a book from the U.S. publisher
Monthly Review called “The U.S. Economic War Against Cuba.” The
financial transaction was intercepted and blocked, and not only the left
was angry.

The U.S. blockade of Cuba was a political decision put in place more
than half a century ago that was meant to destroy an independent,
sovereign and socialist Cuba. But Cuba’s prestige is high and its system
has survived. Today the blockade conflicts with the interests of
growing sectors of the U.S. ruling class. Exposés like AP’s
investigative reports strengthen their hand.

A growing number of businesses in the U.S. are chafing at
Washington’s restrictions that make trade with Cuba almost impossible.
Take Florida, which has a long economic history with Cuba that goes back
long before 1959, and then became a bastion of counterrevolutionary
Cuban exile groups. Elected officials in Florida are pushing for
changes. A recent Atlantic Council poll showed that support for
normalizing relations with Cuba is strong throughout the U.S., and now
even stronger in Florida.

U.S. allies are also balking at the U.S. blockade. In Latin America
and the Caribbean, Cuba is a welcome partner. Brazil has announced that
Cuba will be advertised as a tourist destination, even though U.S. air
carriers are fined when they pay Cuba for overflight authorization.

The U.S. blockade prohibits ships that dock in Cuba from docking in a
U.S. port for six months. But now, shippers and port operators on the
East Coast are wondering what will happen when Cuba’s new container port
at Mariel is fully functional. Will China’s supercontainer ships pass
through the widened Panama Canal and go to Mariel instead of Miami?
Could Mariel become the transshipment point for providing goods
throughout Latin America and the Caribbean?

Cuba has just expanded foreign investment opportunities — a measure
that will certainly bring problems as well as possibilities. But health
care and education, two rights provided to Cubans at no out-of-pocket
cost, are not for sale.

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy calls the blockade “a foolish,
self-defeating embargo” and is calling USAID officials before the Senate
appropriations subcommittee on April 8 to explain why the ZunZuneo
project was undertaken without congressional approval.

Leahy was one of 66 senators who signed a Nov. 21 letter urging
President Barack Obama “to act expeditiously to take whatever steps are
in the national interest to obtain [Alan Gross’s] release, and we stand
ready to support your Administration in pursuit of this worthy goal.”
Gross, a USAID contractor arrested in Cuba as a spy, was the subject of
an earlier report by AP in 2012 that demolished the State Department’s
claim that Gross was a humanitarian. It showed he was actually on the
U.S. government payroll installing secret communication devices issued
by the U.S. military or State Department.

Back on Jan. 1, the 55th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution,
President Raúl Castro said: “The attempts to disseminate ideas that deny
the vitality of the concepts of Marx, Lenin and Martí must be
countered, among other ways, by a creative theoretical conceptualization
of the socialism that’s possible within Cuba’s capabilities as the only
alternative of equality and justice for all.

“The new generations of leaders, who gradually and orderly are
assuming the main responsibilities in the leadership of the nation,
should never forget that this is the Socialist Revolution of the humble,
by the humble and for the humble, an indispensable precept and
effective antidote to refrain from falling under the influence of the
siren songs of the enemy, who will not renounce the objective of
distancing [our leaders] from our people so as to undermine their unity
with the Communist Party, the only and legitimate heir of the legacy and
authority of the Commander in Chief of the Cuban Revolution, comrade
Fidel Castro Ruz.” (Progreso Weekly, April 3)Support for the Cuban 5

The details revealed in the AP report point once again to the
profound injustice done to the Cuban 5 and their families. These five
men came to the U.S. to protect innocent Cubans and others from the
relentless attacks on all levels launched from this country. They did no
harm to the people of the U.S. but were arrested in 1998 and received
heavy jail sentences. They are heroes on all levels. Three of the Cuban 5
still remain in U.S. prisons: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and
Antonio Guerrero. René González and Fernando González have returned to
Cuba after completing their sentences.

From June 4 to 11, activists will bring their case to Washington,
D.C. Join the “5 Days for the Cuban 5” at a rally at the White House at 1
p.m. on Saturday, June 7. On the fifth of every month, call, email or
fax the White House. Plan educational activities in your area. Get more
information at theCuban5.org and 5DaysfortheCuban5.com.

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notice is preserved

Real Unemployment at 12.7%

Friday, April 4, 2014

The official unemployment rate for March was 6.7 percent,
unchanged from February, but real unemployment ticked up to 12.7
percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced on Friday. That number
counts workers forced to settle for part-time jobs and those unemployed
for so long that they have given up looking for work. The Senate is
expected to vote Monday to resurrect benefits that expired last Dec. 28
for the long-term jobless. “This will impact several million American
workers who are at the end of their ropes financially,” Sanders said.
Passing the bill is “the morally right thing to do” and “good
economics,” the senator added, but he cautioned that the measure faces
an uncertain fate in the Republican-run House.

This bill to extend long-term emergency unemployment
benefits for 2.2 million Americans would restore benefits that expired
nearly three months ago.The benefits, about $300 a week on average, help
jobless workers fill up their gas tank to get to a job interview, feed
their families, pay the rent and heat their homes.

Each week that the Congress fails to act, an additional
72,000 Americans are losing their unemployment benefits. Today, about 4
million Americans who are currently looking for a job have been
unemployed for more than 6 months. In the wake of a slow recovery from
the recession that began in 2007, long-term unemployment is near a
60-year high.

House Speaker John Boehner and other Republicans today
oppose extending the benefits, but when George W. Bush was President,
Republicans, including Boehner, voted for emergency unemployment
benefits five times Now that Barack Obama is in the White House, many
congressional Republicans oppose extending these benefits. Since 1958,
Congress has never failed to pass emergency unemployment benefits when
long-term unemployment has been as high as it is today. Today, there are
nearly three job applicants for every one job opening. There simply
aren’t enough jobs out there for the more than 10 million Americans who
are actively seeking work.

The long-term unemployment rate today is more than double
what it’s been at any other time Congress has let emergency jobless
assistance expire. For example, hundreds of people applied last month to
work at a Sam’s Club in Oxford, Ala., that won’t be opening until
August. In January, more than 5,000 people waited in line for just 1,500
jobs at an outlet mall in Palm Beach, Fla. That same month, 1,600
people in Hagerstown, Md., applied for just 36 job openings at a dairy
farm to process milk and ice cream. Last December, 10,000 people applied
for just 750 flight attendant jobs at Southwest Airlines and more than
23,000 Americans applied for just 600 jobs at Wal-Mart in Washington,
DC.

If Congress fails to extend emergency unemployment
benefits, 240,000 American workers will lose their jobs by the end of
this year. The overall economy will be hurt because when people lose
their unemployment benefits, they don’t go to the grocery store, they
don’t buy clothes, they don’t go to the pharmacy. Businesses lose
customers, they lose money, and they fire even more people.

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Jim, Dona, Jess, Ty, "Ava" started out this site as five students enrolled in journalism in NY. Now? We're still students. We're in CA. Journalism? The majority scoffs at the notion.
From the start, at the very start, C.I. of The Common Ills has helped with the writing here. C.I.'s part of our core six/gang. (C.I. and Ava write the TV commentaries by themselves.) So that's the six of us. We also credit Dallas as our link locator, soundboard and much more. We try to remember to thank him each week (don't always remember to note it here) but we'll note him in this. So this is a site by the gang/core six: Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. (of The Common Ills).